Hoping for a Law Degree
by Fae 206
Summary: When a strange change at Greendale turns Jeff into a nineteen year old, Britta helps him get his life on a new and more successful track. Being able to finally get a proper degree and perhaps the love of Annie Edison, Jeff adapts to this new life. When Chang and The Dean find out, there's definitely going to be some trouble for the young man. Jeff/Annie (some Britta/Troy)
1. Chapter 1

**AN: **As much as I love Community, I have never written for it before. I hope you enjoy it. Future chapters will be longer than this one.

**Hoping for a Law Degree**

**Chapter One**

Sometimes Jeff Winger couldn't help but feel that he had seriously screwed up his life somewhere down the line. Maybe he had learned some lessons from his failures but as much as his friendships mattered to him, he always wondered what would have happened were he not to try to cheat the system and what if he had actually studied law and decided to try to do right with what legal studies could do.

It was really too late for regrets though. As much as he wanted things to be different, it was too late for anything to change and if he really believed otherwise, he was foolish. Jeff had decided to take a nap in his car before his next class and hadn't been focusing on what could happen – not that he would have predicted what happened next.

As he heard the sound of two kids yelling, he groggily sat up. He felt…weird. It was crazy but that sleep must have lasted longer than he had planned because he felt youthful and refreshed. As he sat up, he realized that his clothes weren't fitting as well as they usually did. Weird. He must have been asleep for a really long time for his muscle mass to decrease like that.

As Jeff tried to check the mirror to see if his hair was styled well enough, he paused. He didn't look like himself. No, he didn't look like his current self. Staring back at him from the mirror was a teenage Jeff Winger. An older teenager, eighteen or nineteen he was guessing, but still someone less than half his age.

Okay. This was definitely an excuse to cut class. People would expect it anyway, he could come up with numerous excuses. He just needed to go somewhere that made sense or at least made more sense than Greendale. Starting his car, Jeff drove to the first place that he could think of. He needed to talk this over with somebody.

…

…

Bars probably shouldn't open this early in the afternoon but Britta was hoping for any business she could get. She stared at the two usual drunks that frequented her bar and sighed. Tips were going to be slow but she couldn't think of what else to do. She was debating on whether or not to smoke a joint when she was distracted by a panicked and very familiar looking nineteen-year-old. At least, he looked nineteen but that was only two years away from twenty-one.

"Britta," Jeff said as he ran over to the bar.

"Fifty," Britta said as she looked around and Jeff stared at her. He had a lot of nicknames but Fifty wasn't one of them. "I mean, you want to drink right and unless you have a really good fake ID I can't let you be in here legally. So, fifty dollars."

Jeff stared at her, "No, this isn't abou-"

"Kid, I better be seeing some ID pretty soon. I mean, the rules might be lax but they're there," she said and Jeff sighed. At least he could kill two birds with one stone. He took out his wallet – same wallet he had had before – and slapped down his ID card which….had an updated picture and updated date of birth. He was seriously nineteen, how could he be nineteen?

Britta took the card and looked at it skeptically, she looked at him as she read the name and sighed. "So, I'm assuming Jeff Winger sold you this. I mean, the date is wrong unless you're after cigarettes and only he would have such an ego to use his own name as a fake," she laughed.

"That's _not_ a fake card," Jeff tried to tell her and Britta continued to stare at it in disbelief. "Look, I was taking a nap in my car and I became…well I became this. I don't know what I have to tell you to persuade you. Maybe the fact that I met your ex Blade. Maybe the fact that we were in the same study group for years and some old bi-woman shot me with a dart gun or the way you said bagel. Maybe the intimate details of our love ma-"

Britta took hold of Jeff's collar and dragged him to the back before staring at him with wide eyes. "If this is a joke," she warned him. "No, knowing him it's a…"

"I'd be willing to give a DNA test," Jeff offered and Britta still studied him cautiously. "I am _the _Jeff Winger but I don't know how I became _this_," he told her and Britta looked him over again. Those _were _Jeff's clothes that were too big on him, that had been Jeff's wallet. This was impossible. A lot of strange things occurred around the Greendale campus and she could take a guess that it was cursed but this was more than curses. People didn't suddenly go back to a younger version of themselves."

"Okay," Britta said before pushing him down into a chair. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around this but sit there, sit right there," she said as she pointed to him and went back to the bar. Her eyes widened as she saw the dean there. How did he get here so quickly?

"He-Hey," she said with a soft gasp and heard the dean sigh.

"Briiiitta,"he said mournfully, "Have you seen Jeff? Rumors are that he didn't show up to class yet and I was hoping that he'd be here. I mean, I know this has happened before but I get worried when I don't know where he is."

Britta quickly looked at the back room but then turned back to the bald headed man. She needed to get a handle on this as soon as possible but she couldn't tell the dean of what had already happened. If the dean was obsessed with him as a middle aged man, who know what he'd do to the nineteen year old in the back room, especially since he really did look like a heartbreaker.

**End of Chapter One**

**Thank you for reading, reviews are appreciated**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: **Sorry that it took me such a long time to update and thank you for returning to read. I can't tell you anything other than life happened

**Chapter Two**

Britta stared before her at the man she wasn't truly sure she could call an educator. Well, this man was more of a teacher than she was a psychiatrist. She laughed a little as she listened to his question. "Have I seen Jeff?" she asked before shaking her head. "No. I mean, come on, why would I have seen him? It's not like I get tangled up in whatever he's doing all the time."

"I suppose so," Dean Pelton said as he took out his phone, "You and Jeff certainly do have different levels of activity in your social media presence."

"Only because I'm too hip to _be_ on social media," Britta scoffed still feeling as if she had a bright light shone into her eyes. She blinked quickly as the dean examined her. He shook his head before standing up and turning.

"I suppose I should be going then, it doesn't seem anything is going to happen in a place as drab as this," he waved his hand in the air not pointing at anything in particular. Despite the nineteen-year-old Winger she had in the backroom of her bar, she still felt a little insulted at the way that the dean was acting. Sure, she might not have such a huge crowd as others but she felt close to her regulars and proud of her decision. Who cared how proud her so-called parents said they were. She was living the life that she wanted and running her own business.

As she saw the dean leave, Britta took deep breaths before looking to one of her employees. "I'm just uh…gonna head to the baaack," she said as they gave her a look. What might, for most people, seem like a very obvious way of hiding a secret, for Britta it was a regular day not even getting a nod in response. Britta however felt that the sweat was drenching her. This secret was way too big for _her_ to deal with.

Going into the backroom, Britta stared at the nineteen-year-old who was sitting there with his phone in his hand and blinked in shock. Even though she had just seen him, this was way too big for her to process and she stepped out of the room before going back in. Okay. This had to be some kind of like prank show that she was on. She knew Jeff Winger. She had slept with Jeff Winger, thank you very much. This boy, though he might have Jeff's level of maturity, there was not much of a chance that the two were the same person.

Apart from there were some weird occurrences in this world and she wasn't going to invest in a degree to figure out what those things were. She looked over the kid. Yes, he had Jeff's demeanor, his way of casually stretching out and looking like he just didn't care. He looked exactly like if some kid half of Jeff's age was doing a spot on impression of him.

"So," Britta said as she pulled back the chair that Jeff had placed his feet on. She sprayed and wiped it before sitting down. "What are we going to do here?"

"Beats me and I'm thinking that you definitely don't know any enchantments. Isn't it possible that there's some witchy stuff that you can do?" Jeff asked and Britta scoffed. "Isn't that what you Pagans or Vegans or righteous advocates or something are all about?"

Britta rolled her eyes. That was certainly saying something. She sighed before placing her hands down on her knees. "Who do you think I am?"

"I know who you are, Britta," Jeff said as he tucked his phone into his pocket, "thing is, do _you_ know who you are? Do you even know how to help me without some psychological babble about how this is my juvenile nature manifesting in a physical form."

"Well tha-that," Britta nodded along, "but really, what type of woman did you sleep with who would want to curse you like this. Who did you blow off this time? You bang two babes at the same time or something, doesn't seem out of the realm of possible reasons."

"First of all, no. I've been…" Jeff coughed as he looked away, retreating into himself a little. "I've been spending some time working on my own problems. I mean, I felt like I connected with someone and I don't want to enter into a relationship until I've dealt with all of that. Then there's the stress. I mean, you must know what that word means, stress," he said deflecting the problem.

Britta sighed. She might have wanted to react to that if it was anyone else sitting here in front of her. Yet, even if she had felt close to Annie and Shirley, Jeff was the person she was closest with these days. He didn't make fun of the fact that she still adored Troy who was lightyears out of her league, he knew what her fears were and could comfort her about them, and she knew one thing he didn't want others to know. He had never gotten over Annie.

"You miss her," she said and Jeff rolled his eyes. "Listen to me, you're smart."

"Yeah," Jeff shrugged before rolling his eyes again, "but really even being the smartest of people at a place like Greendale is like the shallow end of smart. What are you saying? I should try to craft some miracle drug that will bring me back to the age it says on my birth certificate?"

Britta sighed and stood up, she walked over to the wall before returning to sit down opposite Jeff again. "You want to know what I think?" she asked and Jeff looked at her with raised eyebrows and an expression that asked her what the hell they were talking about otherwise. "What if this is your do-over. I mean, personally, if I got to live life as an eighteen year old again I would probably focus on what I know now and what I'd like to happen. I might even get really passionate about the world, swallow my pride, and join one of those activist groups. I might even do Teach for America."

"And America must be glad that you didn't," Jeff tried to joke but saw the intensity in Britta's eyes. As much fun as it was to listen to the Bagal-Queen, she was at least trying to help him with this very unforeseen problem.

Britta took a deep breath in before inhaling, counting to three, exhaling, and then repeating. "You know who we could really use here?" she asked as excitement filled her face. Jeff stared at her.

"I'm not sure but seeing you looking so manic like that is one of my personal fears," he said and Britta laughed.

"And seeing clothes hanging off of Jeff Winger who prefers to have everything tailor made for him is…much less of a buzzkill than I would have thought. You are pretty cute," she admitted.

"I don't think that us sleeping together would help now," he commented and Britta shook her head, rolling her eyes again.

"Think about which one of our friends would be able to help us with this," Britta said and Jeff looked up at her, "This type of thing happens in movies all the time and we have a friend who has the best knowledge of movies. I mean, we can at least see what he says."

Jeff looked at her with a confused expression, "You're asking _Abed_ help with a major life changing event?" he asked skeptically. He sighed. "Well, I suppose this is a reverse-Big concept. I mean. How bad do I look? Would you even want to sleep with me when I'm like this?"

"Yuh-huh," Britta said and Jeff sat upright very quickly. "I mean, if I didn't know you."

Jeff sighed before getting out his phone. He looked through his contacts before selecting Abed and then started a message with him asking if he would be okay for a video call from him. He waited before seeing a reply to the text saying that they could talk in half an hour. He showed this to Britta. "I think I might just take a walk and be back."

"You're not just going to ditch me for whatever street walker you find out there, are you?" Britta asked skeptically. Jeff rolled his eyes before holding up his phone.

"I'll be back in time for us to talk to Abed," he said before going out into the street. He paled, his body stiffening as he saw the dean outside just pacing back and forth. Whereas he would usually be trying to pry the other man off of him by this time, it seemed this man didn't even recognize him. He was checking him out though.

Jeff pushed his hand through his hair. How was he ever going to get women to respect him if he was in the body of a nineteen-year-old.

AEJWAEJW

Annie stared at her phone at a picture that she had taken with Jeff. She knew that her life was better with her focused on the future but was it bad if your heart still drew you towards the past. No. It was a feeling of nostalgia and wanting to preserve these precious times between her and her friends. She had to move on from being a child. As harsh as it was for her to say it, if she had stayed with Jeff then she wouldn't have moved forwards with her life. Jeff couldn't give to her the life which she wanted and he knew it. She would try to find new people but she didn't think she could ever delete these pictures. She still wanted to think of him as part of her life.

"Hey," a very handsome man said as he approached Annie who was caught up in his smile, his Disney-prince type looks, his athlete type energy. "Are you sitting alone here? Can I buy you a coffee?"

"Yeah," Annie laughed before offering her hand to him, "What's your name? I'd like to know that before I accept your kind offer," she narrowed her eyes as she attempted to examine him. If anyone could dig up clues to this man's identity then she could.

"Chase," he said with a charismatic smile that made Annie tingle a little inside.

**End of Chapter Two**

**Thank you for reading, reviews are appreciated**

**Reviews are actually going to be one of three ways I'll choose which fic to update next so if you do like a particular fic please let me know. If I don't get any reviews, I don't know people like it**

Thank you to the reviewers of Chapter One

EverythingButAverageJane, Guest


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Britta sighed as she heard the noise of the bar get quieter. Soon there would be far fewer people and they could figure out the best way of dealing with this…this…whatever this was. "So," she said as she looked at her friend. "I thought you were scared of getting older," she tried to joke and Jeff rolled his eyes.

"As scared as you are of bag-alls?" he asked before shaking his head. He knew he was just projecting his anxiety…anxiety, that was a word which he didn't want to acknowledge. Girls were never attracted to anxiety. Nobody hired someone who was anxious and lacking charisma. He wasn't used to this. "I feel like I should be making -"

"No, trust me, no, don't make another audition tape for the real world," Britta told him. She sighed. He was always the leader and now it was as if she were talking to a kid brother or something. She smiled as she looked away and shook her head.

"What are you grinning about?" he asked as he raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"Just thinking that you're pretty lucky," she said and he frowned as he turned to her. "Listen, are you happy working at Greendale, being a teacher at Greendale. Now you get to follow whatever dreams you have. Go to a different community college, work yourself up to getting that law degree. Really try. You get to follow a new path. I wish that I could do that."

"So you could go and do activism in Africa, Britta…you don't want to do that," Jeff replied before sighing. His shoulders slumped. She was right. As much as he wanted to say that he was attractive enough to get nearly any girl he wanted, although he wanted to say how life had taught him various lessons and that he liked how people expected him to know those lessons. This was probably better for him. "You seem to be forgetting something though," he told her.

Britta blinked, "Okay. Maybe you need to figure out how to get clothes which actually fit," she said and Jeff looked at his sleeve and rolled his eyes. "That shouldn't be too har-"

"Money. I doubt that you really have enough of a profit from this bar to loan me anything," Jeff told her. He turned his body to face her and Britta couldn't stop thinking of him as a kid brother in this form. She had dated him, slept with him, promised to marry him. That was before he shrank down to this pipsqueak.

"Don't give me that," she sighed. "I have a good friend we can ask, an ex-boyfriend," she said before biting her top lip and Jeff was surprised to see tears in her eyes. He knew that she was referring to Troy but were her feelings of love for him so great even now. For the entirety of her relationship with Troy, he had made jokes about how Troy and Abed seemed more like a couple, they all had.

Before Jeff could figure out the right words in which he could comfort her, there was a beep from Britta's phone and she grabbed her computer. Abed was ready. She opened the device and set it up with a plug to the socket in the brick wall at the back of the bar. She entered her password and clicked on the video call button. She looked to Jeff and put her hand on his shoulder, squeezing it.

"What are you doing?" he asked her with another classic raised eyebrow.

"I thought that maybe you needed some support, someone who is supportive of you even if it is -"

"Thank you," Jeff told her in a genuine manner and Britta smiled feeling more confident in herself. Despite everything that she had done or claimed to do, sometimes things really hurt when she considered herself the very worst. The idea of helping Jeff with this problem made her feel worthy of their friendship. Maybe Shirley had accused her of having a strange morality with her atheism but human relationships meant a lot to her. She just wanted to be someone others could rely on.

"What am I seeing?" Britta heard Abed say and she blinked back. "You said you had a problem…is it just me or did you get a perfect fit for a young-Jeff type. I'd love to know how you managed to hire him if that's the case. Did you go through a service?"

"More like a curse," Jeff sighed before turning to Britta who was nodding.

"Ah, so those movies weren't all just pandering to a demographic to have them buy box sets of movies," Abed replied as Britta smiled and Jeff sat back a little shocked that something like this made sense to Abed, of course a stop-motion holiday season had made sense to him.

"I guess somehow I've found myself in one of those situations," Jeff said before closing his eyes. "Any advice?"

"Well that depends on what your character's narrative is," Abed told him. "You haven't felt yourself unfulfilled because of a failing divorce, a lost love, remembering that you weren't able to win the all important basketball game for your high school. Are any of these situations familiar to you?"

"You mean, was I in a rut?" Jeff asked before shrugging, "Sure, I was feeling in a rut…doesn't everyone get that way?"

"Well, true, yes, everyone does get in a rut sometimes but most people don't become, twenty….twenty-five years younger. Now, that is something unique to you and only a handful of characters," Abed hummed. "Now, could you have used any tainted soap or had a strange but meaningful encounter with a janitor."

"Nothing that I can think of but I'll let you know whether that does fit," Jeff said and Abed hummed.

"Please let me know if anything like that comes to your attention," Abed hummed before looking at the computer. "Maybe you want to be a younger man, like a successful lawyer with a proper degree and working towards a good cause. Or maybe this is to do with Annie…"

Britta smiled as she saw Jeff stiffen a little. He coughed, his throat dry. "Really?"

"No, Annie…what are you…what are you talking about," he asked and Abed hummed.

"Well, you should probably go and see Annie but things aren't going to be simple. Now _she's_ the one who is too old for you. I'm assuming that she's not wanting to be a cougar especially if she's concerned about her profile. I mean, she does have a promising future now," Abed said and Britta saw Jeff's smile fade.

"You should go talk to her. This would be good for both of you," Britta suggested.

"Well, nothing's going to happen unless you do but will you tell me when you're going, I'd love to document this. Such a strange thing happening, it'll be something that most people don't get to see and this kind of scenario, I've always wished that I could actually be in the room when something like this happened. I'll make sure to bring popcorn," Abed said with genuine excitement.

Jeff smiled weakly. "Great, so my life becomes some sort of charade," he said. He looked to Britta. "What do you think?"

"I think you need to see her," Britta replied. "Maybe this is supposed to be a romantic fairytale…some really weird and freaky story but most of them were right, like The Snow Mouse or The Bear and the Witch."

"None of those are stories," Abed pointed out. "So…"

"I think it might be time to see Annie," Jeff said. He had no idea what to think about what could happen next, how did you prepare for something like this?

JWAAJWAA

Jeff stared at his friends before him. This was the first time he had seen Troy since…probably since he left, and the fact that he and Abed had brought snacks to watch him really made him feel uncomfortable and as if this was a joke to them. Britta had been talking about psychology and how she had studied it so that she knew about how he must be feeling. Yeah, right? A _lot_ of people turned young again.

"According to my data, Annie should be visiting this coffee shop in about ten minutes. She is on her way from that direction," Abed pointed.

Jeff looked at them. He had only been this way for a few days and this was much different than he had expected. He had been staying with Britta whilst buying a few outfits and now he was supposed to confess this all to a girl who might have even thought time with him was a mistake. He didn't feel prepared for this. Was this right?

"I have to…I should…" Jeff said nervously and Britta put her hand on his shoulder.

"Man up, this is what we came here for," she said before looking at Troy who was staring at the menu. "Let's get a table,"

"You think that I could buy this place without any problem? I mean, do you see the menu, it says that they have unicorn drinks," he pointed and Abed nodded.

"Yes. It would be cool to drink something made by a unicorn, I don't think that's what it is but it would be pretty cool." Abed nodded and Troy grinned at him. Even with all the trappings of wealth, Troy hadn't changed. He just didn't need to worry about money ever again. No, he had been warned that if he invested in unwisely or tried to find a genie by buying every strange lamp he came across in hopes of finding a genie, he would run out of money.

"I know right," Troy nodded. "I'm sure that unicorns make great drinks."

"You two do realize that there is no such thing as a unicorn, right?" Jeff asked and Abed and Troy shared a look between themselves.

"I wouldn't be questioning what is possible or not," Troy laughed. "Didn't you used to be a lot taller," he joked.

Jeff rolled his eyes but as he looked ahead of him, he could see Annie in the distance. He paled feeling as if he could start hyperventilating. He wasn't ready for this. He couldn't approach her, not like this. He looked around and as the other three saw Annie, he ran. He needed to get as far away from here as possible. What was he supposed to say to her?

"Abed!? Britta!? Troy!" Annie said as she rushed over to them. She grinned widely as Abed tried to figure out how Jeff had gotten away and where he would have gone. It was easy to explain what had happened to Troy, Abed just had to explain it with using other movies as reference and he seemed to just roll with it. Annie might be harder to convince but they had come here so Jeff could confront her. "This is a huge surprise! What are you -"

"This is a surprise?" Troy asked her and Annie blinked at him confused but her smile was still wide on her face. "Trust me, _this_ isn't the surprise, wait until you see Je-"

"Jeff wanted to come. I think something came up though, you know him," Britta laughed as Annie stared at her confused but then sighed and nodded. "I mean, you know…he has his uh…he has his cell phone."

"I think it's hard for him," Annie said and they all noticed some disappointment in her expression. "But it's so amazing that you are all here! What are you doing here!? Do you need my help for something?"

"Yes," Britta said as she scrambled to cover up what they were really doing there. It should be up to Jeff to tell her the truth. "Of course…of course…" she replied. "Let's get in, there's a drink made by a unicorn in here."

"Britta," Annie smiled as she rolled her eyes, "There's no such thing as a unicorn."

"Blasphemy," Troy whispered to Abed who nodded.

"Blasphemy indeed."

**End of Chapter Three**

Thank you for reading

Thank you reviewers for Chapter Two

Amyrwiol, EverythingButAverageJane, Guest (x4),


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